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I assume the baseline here is interpretation of and principals behind understanding the 66 book Protestant canon.

  • What about the extra 7 Deuterocanonical books used by Catholics?

  • What about the extra 12 used by the Eastern Orthodox church?

  • What about other ancient Jewish literature considered of import to understanding the Canon(s)?

  • What about other Apocryphal NT works such as the Gnostic gospels?

  • What about other texts used by some sects such as the Pearl of Great Price used by LDS?

  • What about the Qur'an?

Obviously somewhere along this line the scope changes from being "Biblical" to being general hermeneutics on religious texts. Where is that line to be drawn for the scope of this site?

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Bah. You beat me to it. – Richard Oct 4 '11 at 20:33
@Richard: So you downvote me because you're pouting ;-) – Caleb♦ Oct 4 '11 at 20:38
(?) I didn't downvote... it's 0/0 at the moment... There... now I upvoted it, even! – Richard Oct 4 '11 at 20:46
Actually, I'm glad you asked because my question was a bit more of a rant than a question. (as can be seen in my answer.) (Even that is now deleted!) – Richard Oct 4 '11 at 20:47
I think I know you well enough to know you wouldn't downvote like that anyway, I was just poking. And now the SE overloards get to delete this whole thing as "too chatty". – Caleb♦ Oct 4 '11 at 20:50
Well, we have to do something to keep them on their toes! ;) – Richard Oct 4 '11 at 20:52
Scope insofar as questions, or answers? – swasheck Jan 16 at 18:01
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@swasheck I think this is primarily a relevant discussion for questions. – Caleb♦ Jan 16 at 22:00
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"ancient Jewish literature considered of import to understanding the Canon(s)" are the various Targumin included in that? – Double AA Feb 1 at 19:53

4 Answers

up vote 11 down vote

What does a Biblical hermeneuticist study? Be careful; A Stack Exchange site is defined by an area of expertise, not the dictionary definition of its title.

I wouldn't to get too pedantic about a literal definition of what is actually — according to the Oxford-American-Heritage-Merriam-Webster dictionary — part of THE anointed Bible. That is not the way to go.

You build a site for a group of experts. If there are related texts which experts in this field tend to study because the texts are so closely tied to the subject, I would include them as "on topic" for this site.

Annotate those texts here, if you must, but err towards being inclusive if the experts here can authoritatively answer the questions posed.

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I agree. Gnostic gospels, for example, are studied with the same methodology by some of the same people that apply hermeneutics to the Bible. The same academic expertise is applicable, so research on them should be on-topic. – dancek Oct 5 '11 at 12:08
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@dancek completely wrong logic IMO. The same methodology may be used to study any book - but that should not make any book on-topic. This site is about the Bible - as Robert says and blundin suggests we can err towards being inclusive but the line has to be drawn somewhere. FWIW I think blundin has the balance right. – Jack Douglas♦ Jan 6 '12 at 14:48
up vote 10 down vote

Simply my opinion. I would argue that the term Biblical applies to:

  • The canonical 66 books of the Protestant
  • extra 7 Deuterocanonical books used by Catholics?
  • extra 12 used by the Eastern Orthodox church?

Not:

  • ancient Jewish literature considered of import to understanding the Canon(s)?
  • Apocryphal NT works such as the Gnostic gospels?
  • texts used by some sects such as the Pearl of Great Price used by LDS?

These books above could certainly be used to shed light on the Biblical texts, but should not be open to be the direct subject matter of the questions.

In regards to the Qur'an I would argue it has no standing in this forum as none of the Christian faiths nor Judaism recognize it as a canonical, inspired text.

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I included the last one to help show that there is actually a progression of farther and farther away from a core, but actually many popular Islamic scholars today argue that the Qur'an is more similar to the OT than the NT is. – Caleb♦ Oct 4 '11 at 20:37
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Are we Christians here? I would disagree that this is a Christian site. It's a hermeneutical site. – Richard Oct 4 '11 at 20:39
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@Richard You are right, one need not be a Christian to undertake Biblical Hermeneutics as an academic interest or discipline. Per Wikipedia though (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_hermeneutics) the understood common definition of the field limits it to Christian and Jewish texts. I feel like that should be the spirit of this forum. – blundin Oct 4 '11 at 20:43
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Aah, nice find on wikipedia! Actually, because of that, I agree. – Richard Oct 4 '11 at 20:48
up vote 2 down vote

If you read books by Biblical scholars, you will inevitably find the same hermeneutical techniques applied to other texts. For instance, I'm currently reading N. T. Wright's monumental survey of the rise of the belief of resurrection ("The Resurrection of the Son of God") and he treats extra-Biblical texts (such as Homer and "Books of the Dead") on the same intellectual terms as the Bible itself. Once you posses the tool-set, it's difficult not to apply it to everything.

But that's the answer side of the equation. If the question concerns the origin of the concept of resurrection in Paul, the complete answer will include an analysis of passages in "2 Maccabees". On the question side of the site, "2 Maccabees" does not have the same standing as books that have clearly been included in the Biblical canon. From what I understand, rabbis don't use it and many Christians reject it. I'm not sure if many books are being written about it by Bible scholars.

My suggestion for defining the Canon is that if you can find several copies of the Bible in a secular bookstore that include a particular book, its fair game for questions. Which means "2 Maccabees" is included (barely), but "Pearl of Great Price" isn't.

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For clarity, my understanding is that most protestants consider 2 Maccabees to be non-canonical but helpful as a historical reference. – Ray♦ Oct 11 '11 at 18:47
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Pearl of Great Price is bound in a single volume with the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants with a KJ bible. It is called the Quad in the vernacular. Bookstore test fails... barnesandnoble.com/c/lds-quad-combination – Bob Jones Oct 25 '11 at 1:39
@Bob: My test (which is more like a rule of thumb) would require more than one edition in a physical store. And the book would need to be called a Bible. I'm not sure the Apocrypha would even make it these days. – Jon Ericson♦ Oct 25 '11 at 8:01
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@Jon Heck the Bible not make it under that rule, ;-) – Bob Jones Oct 26 '11 at 0:18
up vote 2 down vote

I think it's important to note that while we can accept discussion of the text of Judaism (Talmud) and Christianity (New Testament), we must stay far away from the doctrine of such.

Because of this, we can't use the New Testament or the Talmud to as a means to interpret the Tanakh/Old Testament. (Unfortunately, this is a bit counter-intuitive since that's somewhat the purpose of the Talmud, to my understanding.)

(Agree? vote up. Disagree with the use of Talmud for interpretation? Vote down, please)

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For textual commentary/interpretation yes. To develop doctrine, no this the place for that. The same goes for other commentaries. We should stop short of developed doctrines and practical theology. – Caleb♦ Oct 11 '11 at 22:59

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